


A Ghost of a Chance

by Diaage



Category: Being Human (US/Canada), Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Dissociative Identity Disorder, F/M, Implied Relationships, Multiple Personalities, Pre-Relationship, Series Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-04
Packaged: 2017-11-23 17:20:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/624645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diaage/pseuds/Diaage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ghosts are missing. Damon Salvatore might not have cared about that, but one of those ghosts belongs to bar stool in Mystic Falls and he's willing to do anything to set it right. Boston seems like a good place to start, being the hometown of said bar stool and all. Finding answers may prove complicated, considering his friend and fellow vigilante wasn't exactly himself when he passed. Another ghost could help track him down, but what reason would that ghost have to help a monster? </p><p>Luckily, sometimes all you need to do is ask.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Ghost of a Chance

**Author's Note:**

> Set immediately after the events of Vampire Diaries Season 3 finale and vaguely during the events of Being Human Season 2. Scott is pre-established as Sally's co-conscious alter.

She'd been people watching from her usual stool at the corner of a local bar when he wandered in, silent as death. After dusting the snow from his black leather jacket, he ran his hands carelessly through his mop of raven colored hair. The extra gestures were ploys, designed to draw attention away from where he was looking. She recognized the tactic immediately; Aidan used it sometimes when he was casing a place. 

Stomping the ice from the treads of his boots, the stranger slid his eyes casually from patron to patron, his gaze never pausing on her. That was to be expected though. No one ever sees a ghost. 

Without delay, the newcomer meandered toward the end of the bar opposite of Sally’s and ordered himself a whiskey. In lieu of payment, the man smiled crookedly, a wry turn of lips, and this, to Sally’s astonishment, sent the pretty barkeep on to her next patron without complaint, a dreamy smile firmly in place. This trend continued for a good while longer: he would finish his drink and the barkeep would reappear a second later, as if summoned by his thoughts. 

This wasn’t an altogether unusual occurrence, on its face. After all, it was a good bar tender’s prerogative to always know how much liquor was in a given person’s glass, and to avail him or herself when the order of another round was imminent. However, this particular barkeep’s attention span was borderline telepathic. No sooner had the stranger’s glass struck his coaster than the woman was there, bottle in hand, poised to pour him another. It didn’t really matter where she had been a moment before. 

Once, Sally could have sworn she saw the woman disappear into the store room, only to turn and find her back at the man’s side, beaming dreamily at him and staring into his eyes over the bottle of Jack. 

His stormy blue eyes, pale like the ocean before a tempest. 

_‘That’s a little heavy handed, don’t you think?’_ Scott groused from inside, startling her with his proximity. She hadn’t noticed he was up yet. _‘I’d say they’re less of a ‘raging tempest’ and more of a ‘dirty dishwater,’ if you asked me.’_

“Well I didn’t ask you, did I?” She snapped, grateful, not for the first time, that no one around her could hear her seemingly talking to herself. 

_‘Hey, I call it like I see it,’_ Scott continued, undaunted. _‘And this guy is a total skeeze ball.’_

“Oh yeah?” Sally muttered, curious despite herself. “How can you tell?”

One of Scott’s talents was being able to accurately read a person from anywhere, even at a distance. Of course, being in direct contact with that person helped him get a better read, but sometimes the subject needn’t even speak to them directly for him to know their measure. 

Sally hadn’t quite gotten the knack of it yet. Granted, she got visions when they possessed breathers, but who knew which were hers and which were Scott’s doing. 

Idly, she wished Scott had revealed himself sooner. Sure, shredding the other ghosts had been horrible, but he thought he was operating in her best interests at the time. He always looked out for her, protected her.

He would have spotted Danny coming from a mile away.

However, there was always the possibility that if he had managed to warn her off of her accidental murderer, then maybe she wouldn’t be dead. If she weren’t dead, maybe she wouldn’t have needed him. 

Funny, how things work out. 

_‘Just look at him,’_ Scott explained, drawing so close over her shoulder she could have sworn if she but turned her head an inch, her cheek would have brushed his thick black hair. _‘Lounging about like he owns the place. Look how he laughs! Like he’s hacking up a hair ball.’_

“A person can’t help how they laugh…” Sally groused, playing with the belt of her loosely knit sweater. She wasn’t entirely sure why she was instigating an argument with Scott in the first place. He was probably right, after all. There was a certain brutality about the man, an edge that even Sally recognized. Instead of warning her back, as Scott might have preferred, the revelation riveted her. She watched the man’s movements like a hawk, waiting for him to pick a target, one of the pub’s many busty bar flies, so that she could tag along for the ride.

 _‘Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean---Sally.’_ Scott groaned, interrupting himself mid-thought. _‘No, Sally.’_ He warned, already sensing her intentions. _‘Don’t even think about it. You know better.’_

“Don’t be such a wet blanket, Scott.” Sally groused, slipping from her bar stool onto the peanut shell strewn floor. “I won’t be a minute.”

 _‘I don’t think you understand,’_ Scott snapped, the humor bleeding from his tone. 

Sally froze, the fine hairs raised on the back of her neck as if she were truly still alive. 

Sometimes, when he was really mad, he reminded Sally why her friend Janet had nicknamed him Reaper. 

_‘We are **not** ,’_ Scott continued in a modulated tone, now that he was certain he had her attention, _‘About to possess some random breather so that you can get your rocks off flirting with a bad boy. You know what kind of side effects we could have. You know those memories are permanent.’_

Stubbornly and without comment, Sally made her way to the outskirts of the crowd surrounding the new comer. 

Scott’s resistance physically hindered her progress significantly. 

She swore loudly. It was like walking through heavy snow!

“It’s my life! You don’t get a stake in every single little decision I make.”

 _‘That’s where you’re wrong babe,’_ Scott sighed, most of the anger he’d felt seconds before ebbing away as he noticed something she hadn’t yet: the threat was gone. _‘It’s our life. You really should read the fine print next time you sign on for a time-share.’_

And just like that, Scott vanished.

'He didn’t _vanish_ ,' she reminded herself, crestfallen even as she regained total motor control. 'He just left for a little while. Like he always does when I've hurt his feelings..’

Toeing the ground, Sally stuffed her hands into her robe pockets and raised her eyes, shamefaced, to the bar.

The man had gone. The women he had surrounded himself blinked at each other in mild confusion. A few literally shook their heads to clear them. After a handful of seconds each woman turned back to her glass and previous company like nothing had happened.

It was probably just as well. 

Making her way back to her bar stool, Sally sorely considered calling the night a bust and flickering back to the flat. Ever since she’d broken up with Nick, she’d been reminded how incredibly lonely the afterlife really is, even with the guys around. Josh had Nora and Aidan had Suren. She didn’t have anybody. 

Except Scott, but knowing him he wouldn’t wander back to chat anytime soon.

It was common knowledge around the ghost circuit that bars like these were single’s mixers to the terminally dead. Sally had been watching the hustle bustle for a couple of hours, but so far no one had caught her eye. 

No one but that stranger.  
It wasn’t hard to pin point what had drawn her interest in the first place. He was tall, dark, and disarmingly handsome. The cut of his jeans accentuated certain aspects of his anatomy to the nth degree, and when he’d leaned over the bar to talk to the tender, she’d found it hard to look anywhere except the curve of his back. The women of the establishment flocked to him like he was charm embodied, like he was the answer to their darkest fantasies. 

He was exactly the kind of guy who wouldn’t have given Sally the time of day while she’d been alive. 

Her death, however, was still full of surprises.

“Looking for me?” A voice purred near her ear, close enough to give her a start. Wheeling on her bar stool, she faced the man from before who had appeared behind her, entirely without her notice.

Habitually, she glanced over her shoulder to see who he might be talking to. There was no one there or in the near vicinity. That could only mean one thing.

“Crap. You can see me?” 

The eyes she had so admired earlier narrowed in pique. He looked her over, as if for the first time, assessing her minimal makeup, unassuming knit robe and skin tight yoga pants. 

All together, it wasn’t the ideal Friday night out ensemble, but you know that saying 'you wouldn't be caught dead wearing this or that'? Turns out you really can't help what you're killed in.

 

“Oh, you think no one can see you?” He wise-cracked, showing her a perfectly lopsided grin. “Is that why you wore pajamas to a bar?” He leaned close then, supporting most of his weight on the hand he braced against the bar behind her, while his other hand balanced on his hip, under his jacket. The purposeful hand placement was meant as a not so subtle reminder that she wasn’t caged, that she had an out. That it would be her own folly if she didn’t take it. 

Good thing she didn’t need it. 

“You don’t seem to mind,” she murmured in what she hoped was a good approximation of a husky tone. Crossing her legs daintily, she re-angled her position so that there was no chance she might accidently brush his arm and phase through it. Gazing unabashedly into his eyes, she offered him in her own version of a predatory, knowing smile.

To him, a tiger, it probably came off as a kitten trying to look mean.

“As a matter of fact,” she drawled further, leaning back on an elbow on the area of bar opposite of his outstretched arm. Unabashed, she studied him with much the same impersonal openness he’d afforded her earlier. “You were just the man I was looking for.”

Her purposeful reshuffling probably didn’t go unnoticed to him, but in lieu of commenting, he laughed. “I really doubt that. After all, I didn’t tell anyone I would be here, so how could you be waiting for me?”

“I didn’t say I was waiting on you,” Sally teased, breaking eye contact to examine her infinitely more fascinating nails. “I said I was looking for you.”

“Mhm,” the man murmured. Though he was probably no stranger to stalling tactics, he seemed unaccustomed to anyone’s outright disinterest, especially a woman’s. “Are you really going to sit there and argue semantics with me?”

“Oh, I don’t have to sit to do it,” the ghost laughed, slipping down from her stool for what was only the second time that evening, utilizing his proffered exit point. The same one no one had ever taken before. “I could be standing, or for that matter, walking away.” 

True to her word, Sally turned away, fully expecting a stunned silence, or his attempting to impede her leaving in some way. If he tried to grab her arm, wouldn’t he be surprised when his hand phased right through? She was already congratulating herself when she took the first two steps, figuring she’d thrown off his game, at the very least. 

She didn’t expect him to just suddenly be in her path, faster than any ghost she knew, including herself. 

He bore down on her then, not with his physicality but with his gaze. She felt her own vision start to tunnel out as the edges of the bar went fuzzy. “I think you should come with me and answer some questions. I think you’d like that.”

She saw his pupils dilate as he spoke, felt her cares start to drift away. She almost complied with his request just for the hell of it, because it felt good, and if she had been alive, she knew she would have. But something, no, someone, had other plans. 

At first, she’d been in the bar talking to this man, but the next thing she knew she had been uprooted, shuffled to the back of her own mind like an ace in a deck of cards. Scott had control now, and she took the opportunity to cement her hold on the void space while he was distracted, before he had a chance to lock her out like he usually would. 

“In what universe can a vampire compel a ghost?” Scott demanded, scorn radiating every fiber of his being. “You’ve got to be fucked in the head if you thought for a second that would actually work.”

Vampire? Sally had known he had to be a supe of some variety to be able to see them, but she had been betting medium or witch. He just didn’t feel like Aidan did in her head..

 _‘Oh, he’s vampire alright,’_ Scott told her, demonstrating how very aware he was of her presence. _‘I knew what he was the moment he came in but I didn’t think I had to state the obvious for you. We live with one for crying out loud.'_

All of the charm and good humor fled from the man’s expression, until all that was left was stone. 

“I thought I had you pegged when nobody looked up while you were raving to yourself, but I had to be sure.” His tone was as honed and precise as a well sharpened blade, and the words cut Sally to the quick. He hadn’t spoken to her because he liked her, he’d approached her because he needed something.

Something only a ghost could do, apparently. 

“Gee, why ever would you need a ghost’s help?” Scott snapped, coming to the same conclusion Sally had. “Did you kill somebody and now you’re feeling sorry about it?”

The man’s expression solidified further, if such a thing were possible. The light died quietly in those expressive eyes. 

Now, that look she’d seen before, plenty of the times. It was the look Aidan got just before someone pushed him too far.

“Oh. that’s not it. Maybe someone died with valuable information and you need a foothold to the other side in order to contact them. No, that isn’t right either.” Scott drew back then, their thumb and forefinger raised to their chin while he pretended to think. 

‘Scott,’ Sally begged, panic-stricken. ‘Don’t be cruel. You’ll go too far.’

“I know! You got your lover killed and now you want one of us to help you say good-bye.” 

Something in the man’s gaze fractured and broke. Sally could almost hear it happen.

 _‘Jackpot.’_ Scott said inside, victorious. 

Honestly, Sally thought she was going to be ill.

“How sweet,” Scott cooed, still in control. “Really, I mean that. I hadn’t thought a regular vampire had the propensity to feel remorse.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” The man said quietly, taking long, even breaths as he raised his hand to pinch between his eyes and hopefully stave off any murderous impulses he might be feeling. 

Fat lot of good they’d do him. They were already dead, and besides that, he couldn’t touch the body if he tried. 

“And I think you don’t know what you’re asking, or who you’re asking, for that matter.” Scott seethed, sidestepping the man entirely and attempting to brush past.

The man caught their body around the arm, which startled Scott badly enough that Sally was able to strong arm her way back to the foreground. Scott tried to flicker them home, but they didn’t budge. His last resort might have been to possess the man, to confuse and disorientate him so that they might escape, but Sally could tell that wouldn’t work even if he tried. 

The man’s grip was wrapped firmly around her arm, and she felt none of the usual stirrings that signaled a merger was imminent. 

For whatever reason, they couldn’t posses him or shake his hold. He held on as surely as if he were one of them. 

Growling with impatience, he held up his free left hand, showing an ornate Lapis Lazuli ring, inscribed with a silver crest reading “Pro Infinito” on his middle finger. 

“A show of good faith, then.” The vampire intoned reasonably, and Sally knew he needn’t have revealed the trinket’s purpose to them at all. “You’re protected from the worst of my abilities, being dead,” he emphasized, fixing her in a slightly-bug eyed stare. Sally could have laughed at the visual, but she choked the sound off in her throat. Now was so not the time. “And thanks to the help of a witch, I’m protected from yours. Also,” he muttered, dropping his hold from her forearm to her wrist. “As long as we’re in contact with each other, you can’t flicker away or,” he paused again, using his handhold as an anchor in order to whip her around, her back to his chest, her wrist twisted almost painfully up against her collar bone as he steered her out of the establishment. “Possess anyone else. So don’t even think about it.” He warned gruffly, lips brushing her hair. 

Had there been any imminent threat of violence in his demeanor, Sally was certain Scott would have fought him off. The fact that he didn’t even try to retake control told Sally he was waiting, biding his time. She trusted his judgment, but only partly because it was all she could do. 

_‘Best to wait,’_ Scott whispered, reassuring her with his presence. _‘See if you can get him to drop his guard. You’d have a better chance than I would.’_

That was an understatement.

She laughed and felt the vibration of it through her wrist, knowing he’d feel it too.

“So you came here prepared.” Sally observed, finding she didn’t have to try very hard to sound impressed.

“Something like that.” The stranger admitted with a snort. For what it was worth, he didn’t sound like he was angry anymore.

_‘Just relax. I’m watching him. I’ve got you.’_

“Next you’ll be telling me my name and how I died.”

“Sally Malik. Accidental fall. The police suspected your fiancé, was it?” He whispered, pausing dramatically as he maneuvered them both out into the snow. If he looked awkward walking with such a rigid stance with arm flexed and brought up in front of him, no one commented. “No charges were ever filed.”

Sally swallowed hollowly. Scott swore. Craning her head as far back as she could, she caught his twinkling gaze. 

“I do my research. I know all of the recent accidental deaths and murders in the area.”

 _‘Newer ghosts are closer to the veil which makes them easier to contact than older ones.’_ Scott reasoned, mirroring her thoughts exactly. _‘Victims of accidental deaths and murders will have the most unfinished business and are more likely to leave ghosts. He’s smart.’_ Scott bristled, and Sally thought she might have heard a tinge of admiration in his tone.

“You know all about me already,” Sally stalled, wetting her lips. “Hardly seems fair.”

She felt a pressure against her scalp. A smile?

“The name’s Salvatore,” the man murmured. “Damon Salvatore. You weren’t too far off, what you said before.” 

Now that they’d walked a bit of distance away from the cheerily lit alcove of the bar into the snow filled quiet of the night, Damon found an alleyway some ways up the walk and maneuvered them toward it. The going was awkward and uncoordinated, mostly due to her non-compliance but partly because of the thick, cumberson snowfall that littered the ground.

“I did lose someone.” Damon confided, wheeling her back around to face him shortly before pinning her to the wall at the alley’s mouth. “A friend, maybe my only friend.” He laughed in a way that was probably supposed to be self-depreciating but ended up coming off as self-satisfied. “He’s pretty fresh in the ground so I figured hey, why not backtrack to Boston, his home town, and see if he’s been seen up and about, you know, making the rounds.” He leered down at her then, and it was a purposeful, challenging leer. His lips even puckered to match, scrunching his nose up like he smelled something sour. 

And there was that bug-eyed intensity again. This time she laughed for real. 

_‘It’s all posturing,’_ Scott pointed out, breathless. _‘Other than that ring, he’s got squat. The ball is in our court.’_

‘I know,’ Sally reassured him, ‘I’ve got this handled.’

Damon didn’t exactly take to being laughed at with a shine. He wrapped his left hand around her free one and brought that arm above her head to match the other. Transferring both her petit wrists to his capable right hand, he lowered his left to thumb her cheek. Then he caught her throat, but didn’t immediately apply any pressure. They both knew she couldn’t die twice, but given the properties of the ring, if he chose to strangle her she might still choke.

“Why not talk to the ghosts in the town he died in? There’s sure to be a couple hanging around if vampires are involved.” This wasn’t meant as a barb to him specifically, just a general statement of fact. Vampires equal death. It's just how the world operated. 

“There aren’t any ghosts left.”

To that Sally laughed again, causing Damon’s carefully cultivated control to slip a notch or two. His hand twitched at her throat, but the pressure abated momentarily. He was still waiting. “There are always ghosts,” Sally insisted, undaunted. “They’re part of the natural order. Everyone knows that!” 

“Ideally, yeah,” Damon snapped, leaning close enough to get in her face, invade her space. “But they disappear if a witch forces them all behind the veil and traps them there, if they lose their footholds in the physical plane.” He paused then, eyes relentlessly searching hers, his breath fanning her cheek hotly.

“Where is this happening?” She demanded, once again struggling against his hold. He didn’t fight her, merely held her fast. 

“Virginia,” he murmured, gruffly. “A town called Mystic Falls.”

She couldn’t look away. She couldn’t process the gravity of what he was saying. He wasn’t trying to compel her now, she knew, but somehow, all she could think about was the way his breath smelled of cinnamon and ever so faintly of old blood.

“Help me find my friend, help me find Alaric Saltzman.” He said slowly, measuring every word. Inhaling a cleansing breath through his nose, he continued. “He’ll know what’s going on. He was turned by the same witch who did this. When she died, she took him with her. If he’s around, he’ll have a connection to her, maybe he’ll know what she’s done, so I can find a way to reverse it.”

Sally’s brow furrowed in understanding while her eyes filled with an unconditional compassion, despite everything the vampire had done and said until now, even his ready grip on her throat. 

“Sweety,” she intoned softly, his face still close enough to hers that she could have been whispering any number of promises or sweet nothings to him. What she said instead was cruel, but it needed to be said. “Vampires can’t leave ghosts. When they’re turned, their souls are infused with their physical bodies.” Sally spoke softly, evenly, as if she were comforting a child.

Worst of all, she never took her eyes from his, so when her own filled with sympathetic tears, he was treated to the whole show. “When that body is desecrated, so are their souls. There isn’t a second chance for them. They’re just gone.”

“I can’t believe that,” he said stubbornly, voice strengthened by the steadfast denial of the truly bereaved. “Ric wasn’t turned in the conventional sense. Ester used a spell. If I could just find him, I know he’ll be able to help.” His words were hallowing out, sounding aloud for all-the-world like the meaningless mantra they were in his head. “I know he’s still here,” he whispered, his right hand loosening its hold on her wrists while his legs failed him. “He has to be. I can’t do this alone.”

Sliding with him to the ground, her legs curled up under her, she wrapped her hand around the one at her throat and rubbed soothing circles in his knuckles. “Shhh,” she comforted him, “It’s alright. Shh.”

Slowly, by increments, Damon’s hand unwrapped from her throat and dropped to his knee. With one leg bent under him and the other outstretched toward the wall Sally leaned against, he unconsciously paralleled the pose he’d struck when he’d first approached her. 

It made her think more of him, in an odd way. Like maybe he wasn’t as scheming and methodical as she’d originally taken him to be. Like maybe most of his posturing was simply habit, learned behavior rather than intentional deceit. 

He stared hard at the ground, not focused on her. She could have run at any moment, she could have extricated herself from him and flickered home or to the hospital where both Josh and Aidan worked. She could have alerted them to this intruder in their territory or brought him to Mother and dealt with. She could have done all these things and yet she stayed put.

And worst of all, she never let go of his hand.


End file.
